June Gloaming, with Time

I stand before a great tree.
Tell me how to read these stars.

These pinioned desires.
Is life all shade and shape

And the great softening outline?
We see the other’s thoughts,

From the outside, how like a tree
Withstanding a breeze it withstands

A name passing through it. Not a leaf
Is left unspun. Yet still the vast unmoved

Outline. Still the shadow lengthening
Across the afternoon’s single road.

One night was your hand
On the small of my back,

A cloud’s rondured syllables
mumbling almost a word in the dark.